


Shadow of a Man

by passing-fanciful (kageygirl)



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Episode Related, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-12
Updated: 2015-05-12
Packaged: 2018-03-30 05:59:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3925465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kageygirl/pseuds/passing-fanciful
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Killian's dreams are far more grand than a lowly deckhand deserves.</p>
<p>Spoilers for "Operation Mongoose."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shadow of a Man

After another long day scrubbing the deck, working the fingers he still has raw--because he's tangled the lines, or spilled gunpowder while loading cartridges _again_ , or lost one of their nets over the side--he should fall into his hammock to a dreamless sleep, exhaustion dragging him under.

But he never does.

Instead he dreams--tantalizing images that dance just out of his reach, faces that won't resolve into details, pictures painted more by feeling than vision. A ship, his own ship, her deck surging beneath his feet, answering to his commands as they fly before the wind. A boy, dark-haired and clever, trading tales of a strange realm for tales of Killian's own, easing an ache in Killian's heart that he doesn't understand.

Other faces, too--friends and companions, building comradeship based on respect, on trust, on a shared past of overcoming obstacles and dangers and villains together. Having not just a berth, but a _home_. Standing tall and facing life as--as a hero, rather than the cringing coward he truly is, too afraid to try to better his lot for fear of making it worse.

And then there's _her_.

The other dreams come and go, but every night, she waits behind his eyelids. He knows naught of her face but flashing green eyes and a riot of flaxen hair cascading about her shoulders, and yet, he knows, she is _everything_. She makes him want to be bold, to be noble, to be a man of courage and honor, a man worthy of such a woman. She makes him long to be _more_ , to fight for what he wants, the desire so strong he can taste it on his tongue.

And yet he wakes every morning, the same pathetic excuse for a man he's always been, his mouth filled with ashes.

* * *

He doesn't recognize the lad at first, the mad brave boy who dispatches the fearsome Blackbeard and steals his ship for a dangerous quest to rescue his mother. The whole adventure scarcely seems real--panic threatens to steal his breath at every moment, for he's not meant for such things, for such reckless heroics. He's but a deckhand, and a barely competent one at that, and he's more likely to hinder their enterprise than contribute to its success.

But succeed they do, the boy's mother fetching up against his chest in her haste to escape from confinement, and his breath is snatched away by a far more cunning thief (who makes off with his wits and his manners for good measure).

Flashing green eyes and flaxen hair beguile him in an instant.

It's then that he begins to believe, to truly _believe_ young Henry's story of a world beyond this one, a better world, for there's an intimacy and a joy in her impromptu embrace, a feeling of peace and rightness settling him in his skin for the first time in his life.

For the first time in the waking world, he knows the taste of hope, wild and untrammeled, burning away the bitterness of dull despair that's tainted his every breath.

* * *

Sometimes, his shipmates have bought him a woman at a brothel--as a jest, to watch him stammer and blush as he tries to talk to her, to see him start when she lays a hand on his arm or his thigh. The women offer him as much kindness as they've been paid to, but they never truly look on him without pity.

And yet this glorious woman, this vision of grace and power and self-assurance--she stares at him like she knows him and doesn't find him lacking. She smiles, and it's as if she _wants_ to be beside him--as if there's nowhere she'd rather be. He flushes under her regard, and she shakes her head fondly as she helps her son haul in the sheets to speed their journey back to the harbor, to the wedding they must disrupt in order to restore her reality.

He grips the wheel tight and wonders, oh how he wonders, what he is to her, where she comes from.

* * *

It's a brief sharp thrill of pride he feels at his disarming the Evil Queen's minion--and a far sharper pain as that man's dagger finds a home in his back. Even as he's dying, the only thing he regrets is the pain on Emma's face.

After all, he may be dying, but this is the first day he's ever truly lived.

And if she does succeed (she _will_ ; he may know little else about her, but he knows this), then he'll have done one thing worthy of meeting her again--of being the man whose memory brought faith into her eyes and purpose into his life.


End file.
